Try-saver silences El Masri critics

All week, Hazem El Masri must have felt he was being sledged by a cameraman, as the aftermath of Francis Meli scoring five tries down his wing last weekend led to cries of: "Can kick, can't tackle."

But in a single moment at Aussie Stadium yesterday, El Masri emphatically silenced the critics, pumped enthusiasm through the veins of teammates, and deflated the opposition.

The Bulldogs were leading 4-0 at the time - after El Masri had a rare miss on a relatively easy conversion - when Melbourne centre Steven Bell broke the line and weaved his way through some shoddy defence. As he strode inside the 20 metres, the run had "try" stamped all over it, even with El Masri in pursuit.

The winger dived at Bell just metres from the line and managed to drag him down, though it seemed momentum would still carry Bell over under the posts.

But in a piece of defensive genius, El Masri dived on Bell's torso and managed to prevent the ball being grounded as they crossed the line.

"Those types of things lift everyone's confidence," Dogs skipper Steve Price said of the tackle. "All week you guys have been into him and Nigel [Vagana] about their defence, and he proved he can tackle today. That was one of the best tackles of the year. It was freakish."

El Masri said of the effort: "It's always good when you can come up with things like that. There's a lot of turning points in a match and I guess that was probably one of them. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and was there to make a tackle."

El Masri had an exceptional game but, strangely, it wasn't one of his better days with the boot, kicking just four from seven. That, however, was good enough to break a few more records.

Yesterday El Masri moved his tally to 288 points for the season, eclipsing Rooster Ivan Cleary's premiership record of 284 points set in 1998; his goal tally - 126 - passing the record of 123 set by Eel Mick Cronin in 1982.

"My main priority was not to let the team down . . . if you can break a few records it's always a big bonus," he said.